Strength
by starscriptmage
Summary: Tony Stark wants a lot of things, but having a mental breakdown in front of the people he'd trusted is not one of them. Tons of angst. Written for kazimir29 on tumblr.


**Written for kazimir29 on tumblr, because their ar hurt my heart, and I needed an outlet.**

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" _Don't touch me_!" Tony's voice rings out harshly through the lab, and Pepper stiffens, her eyes widening in shock, her hand curving away from him. Thick, red-gold lashes flutter in confusion and maybe for a second, Tony wishes he could take back his words, but he can't, and his stupid pride doesn't allow him to in the first place, but there really isn't anything he can do about it, because everyone is staring now as if he'd just crashed some elementary school kid's birthday party, and it just _hurts._

"What happened, Tony?" Bruce asks, his calm, professional mask cracking slightly to reveal concern, and Tony feels a wicked stab of satisfaction at this. _Good. Feel concerned_ now _. I've been suffering for so freaking long, and now you notice there's something wrong?_

"Stark?" Wanda. He doesn't blame her for not noticing - he can't, really, she's just a kid - but for heaven's sake, she's _psychic,_ hasn't she noticed the monsters that come to life in his brain, even in broad daylight? Hasn't she?

Natasha. Stunning, dangerous 'Natalie Rushman'. An assassin with a sway to her gait that immediately puts every man at ease, only for the poor guy to die the next morning from poison, or strangulation, or internal bleeding, or whatever gruesome end her vixen's mind thinks up. She's smart, though. She doesn't say anything, but her calculating eyes are distant, shuttering between so many different emotions that Tony gives up trying to figure her out her reaction.

Scott and Clint aren't here, and Tony's half-glad they aren't. Both are fathers, both would have known months ago that his past has started to corrupt his present - it's a dad thing, he supposes. Thor's not present - he hasn't been for a while now. And the big black panther's in Wakanda on some business trip - a part of Tony is happy that the cat man won't be witnessing Anthony Stark, Successful Businessman, break down into a billion pieces in front of the people _he'd thought was his own family._

Vision is the very image of concern. Seeing as he's one of Tony's oldest companions (or, JARVIS was, at least) he might've sensed Tony hasn't been acting like he usually does. Tony can't fully hate him for that, though - he's seen how… _distracted_ Vision gets around Wanda, and he can relate. The world just disappears when he looks at Pepper, reality just flies out the window when he sees beautiful, fiery Pepper. His Pepper. But he refuses to look her in the eye. She of all people should have protected him, but she didn't, and it still stings a little when he realizes distantly that she might have dismissed it as just a natural occurrence. Because when your parents have been murdered years ago, and you've seen horrors no one else has, it's natural to wake up screaming yourself hoarse, right?

"Tony?" And then there's Steve. Captain Perfect. For all the _caring for mankind_ - _protecting the world - justice on Earth_ \- crap he spouts, even he hasn't noticed the terror that splits Tony's dreams from reality each night.

 _They don't care,_ Tony thinks bitterly, furiously, his nails carving ugly red semicircles into the flesh of his palms. _I was hurting - I_ am _hurting - and they don't care._

They hadn't cared, they didn't the past few months, so what did it matter to him, anyway?

But a part of him does care, and he hates it with all the strength he has in his body. So Tony channels that horrible, gnawing feeling. He channels it into his fury, feeding the already roaring flame, because now that he's started, he might as well finish it.

Words burst out of his mouth: searing, venomous words that slice deeply and mercilessly, words that he's been dying to say ever since he'd first woken up drenched in sweat and praying to God he'd be delivered from the hell he's been reliving every night.

"I trusted you. All of you. I _cared_ for you - " here his voice cracks a little, and he avoids looking straight at Pepper, because he knows that if he does, he'll unravel. "And I thought you'd _care."_

"Of course we care," Steve begins, but Tony is _done._ He is done with the choking, suffocating feeling in his chest that tells him he is doomed to die alone under the light of a thousand cold stars. He is done with the desperate hope and pessimistic doubt that someone _might_ come to comfort him, to tell him everything was alright, to even notice that he was dying every time he closed his eyes. He is done with the gradual slipping grasp on reality, and the tiny little flashbacks that are gradually growing longer every time he opens his mouth to speak, or takes a step, or breathes in. He is done with sickening wrench in his gut telling him that _if they really were my friends, they'd see._

"No," he says, his voice going flat and dull like a worn knife, and all emotion leaves him, because his aching artificial heart has hurt so much he can't feel anything anymore. He ignores Pepper, who collapses on her knees and sobs brokenly into her hands. He ignores Bruce, who chokes silently on his suppressed emotions and can only communicate his anguish through his face. He ignores Steve, whose eyes have grown red, and Vision, whose expression has gone completely, utterly blank. He ignores Wanda's muffled cry of regret. He ignores them all, because that was what they did to him. "I thought all of you were my friends. I considered you my family - which is saying something, because _I didn't let anyone except for P -_ Virginia _really understand my true thoughts after my parents died_. I believed in all of you despite the way you ignored the way I was dying from _fear_ every second of the day, and I'm not going to do that anymore."

Tears prick the corners of his eyes and Tony tries to keep them back - he really does. He's a businessman, he's a scientist, he's a hero, he's a saviour - an inventor, a prodigy, a _genius_ \- he's Iron Man, he protects the world, he is the cocky, self-absorbed playboy who pretends he can make up for his million mistakes and create a world where no one ever has to claw at their throbbing chest and mewl their dead parent's names when they wake up in the _middle of the night all by themselves_ and he's - he's -

He's crying.

But somehow, he can't make himself care anymore.

"I hate you," Tony says, his dead heart twisting inside his chest, as if in its death throes. "I hate all of you and I wish I never met any one of you in my life. I wish I'd never gotten to know any of you, told you my secrets, gave you my demons, trusted any of you with my life, risked my own skin for you, grown close enough to you to think that you'd care even the slightest bit - I wish I'll never see your faces from now on - I wish that I'll never let anyone into my heart ever again in my life - _I wish I'd just died in that cave in Afghanistan!"_


End file.
